A low-budget Jackass in Serbia, and a friendship that is overtaken by time. And a grater.
Who are these guys (they’re always guys) who create these home-made Jackass clips? Who jump off rooftops, set their hair on fire and kick each other in the balls, just to film it and post it online? I’ve been wondering that for years. I’ve looked it up, and my literal question, in an article in the late film magazine Skrien in 2006 was: ‘Are the creators tired of life, cool, or just really stupid?’
The Serbian movie Tilva Ros provides an answer. Our two heroes, Stefan (or Steki) and Toda, are definitely not very stupid. Maybe not the brightest bulbs humanity ever had to offer, but not very stupid.
They are cool. They edge each other on, accuse each other of being afraid, and cheer each other on when they do proceed to hurt themselves. They form a club, Kolos, and beckon other guys with membership and threaten each other with expulsion. Still it’s all pretty relaxed. No exaggerated laughter or the affected woohoo! you always get with Jackass and its American clones. This is cool with a healthy dose of self-mockery.
They aren’t tired of life either, that’s way too strongly worded. But they are a little tired. This is Jackass with a joint. Nihilism with a skateboard. Our two heroes both have their eye on the girl Dunja, who just returned from France where she currently lives. They don’t talk about it, but you can tell. And they argue about it, even though they pretend to be arguing about something else.
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Meanwhile, Dunja is about to return to France and Stefan is going to university, so Toda will be left behind on his own – and he doesn’t feel like doing anything. He stays in Bor, a mining town in eastern Serbia where men are out on the street protesting against privatization. But where they do have internet, mobile phones and skateboards, and where things don’t look so terribly different from, say, an American provincial town.
Slowly, the film touches on a deeper reason for all those films about self-destruction (because somehow it’s always about destroying yourself, or destroying each other with mutual consent): Toda goes in extra hard when he feels tempted by Dunja or slighted by Stefan. Even when there are no cameras present.
And don’t think that director Nikola Lezaic is making it all up either. The stunt films came first. Stefan and Toda – their real names – made their own hour-long Jackass in 2005 en 2006, titled Crap – Pain is Empty. Their townsman Lezaic saw it and had an idea for a feature film, in which they mainly play themselves. Some scenes in which they beat each other with sticks and belts, for example, are from their own collection. Although they also recorded a few new painful shots. Grater!
You’ll have to imagine the bigger why yourself. This is a film to relax with (in deckchairs) and feel involved and removed at the same time.
translated by Marjan Westbroek
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